DIY LARP Gear, Garb, and Accessories

If you enjoy being a member of the many live action role-playing groups, you’re well aware that a big part of the fun is creating your own personal storyline for the games and battles. This extends from a personal background to include garb, armor, and weapons, with the only real limit being imagination.

One of the most important components in the creation of LARP armor, weapons, and accessories is foam, with different material sheets offering varying levels of durability, strength, support, and padding. This is perfect when making shields, swords, and armor can all be done in different ways, with different grades of material. LARP swords, sometimes called boffers, typically have a core of rigid plastic or fiberglass wrapped in high density foam, creating something substantial enough to parry and strike with, but soft enough to avoid injury. Ubiquitous foam noodles are often used, since they’re already sword-shaped. If permitted in the rules of play of a particular game, boffers can feature thrusting tips made of the softest open-cell foam.

Thicker foam sheets are routinely fashioned around shields for deflecting blows with a combination of rigidity and padded softness. Outdoor cushion foam is used from time to time due to its ability to get wet without rotting or degrading, and thicker sections of water-resistant polyethylene are rigid enough to hold up to aggressive use. In thinner sheets, foam can even be fashioned into lightweight, body armor or adornments.

When you build your own DIY LARP foam accessories, you’re sure to have a fun time while staying safe.